Detecting relic gravitational waves in the CMB: The contamination caused by the cosmological birefringence

作者：Zhao, Wen^*; Li, Mingzhe

来源：Physics Letters B, 2014, 737: 329-334.

DOI：10.1016/j.physletb.2014.09.003

• MICROWAVE BACKGROUND POLARIZATION
• TESTING CPT SYMMETRY
• GRAVITY-WAVES
• ANISOTROPY
• PROBE
• VIOLATION
• SIGNATURE
• LORENTZ
• LIMITS

The B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is an excellent information channel for the detection of relic gravitational waves. However, the detection is contaminated by the B-mode polarization generated by some other effects. In this paper, we discuss the contaminations caused by the cosmological birefringence, which converts the CMB E-mode to the B-mode, and forms the effective noise for the detection of gravitational waves. We find that this contamination is significant, if the rotation angle is large. However, this kind of B-mode can be properly de-rotated, and the effective noises can be greatly reduced. We find that, comparing with the contaminations caused by cosmic weak lensing, the residual polarization generated by the cosmological birefringence is negligible for the detection of relic gravitational waves in the CMB.

• 出版日期2014-10-7
• 单位中国科学技术大学